Hello again

Welcome to day thirty four of our run of Zine 2 submission posts. We’ve be posting each submission, as it appears in our zine. Not every single day (as some may have noticed) but most days… I have been reluctant to post the last few as we’re a couple of pages from the end of the zine.

We’re featuring more amazing poetry by Jackie Hagan. The introduction to her work in the zine was featured on day 3. Check out her Jackie’s amazing work here.
Buy a copy her work in the zine here designingoutsuicide.bigcartel.com.

See her poem, Yellow, below…

Yellow

There are vases in Wilko’s for 50p
so she buys them all,
no patience for paper
to stop them from breaking
too much world to be had.

She has been panic-hiding all Winter
from drab mistakes no one remembers
denying herself cottage pie
and the comfort of the kettle
but the clocks went forward last night,
time for a different kind of hiding
one that shouts “Looks at me!
I’m not ashamed anymore!
How could I be?
I’m wearing yellow!”

This kind of coping feels better,
higher in the throat,
taller,
smilier,
yellower.
Like that country that has days that never turn to night.

She is infatutated
(as is the tradition)
with treehouses and a boy
who looks like he is in a sanitorium with TB
in the olden days
(this is her type).

She has inserted herself into his life,
pretended to like Leonard Cohen and listening,
her first objective was to see inside his flat,
(dissapointing like boys are)
the next was the kiss and the cumming
and today she just wants him to love her.

“Just be yourself, relax, if it’s meant to happen it will”
she has never thought,
instead she fluster-buys
20 bunches of daffodills.

Decorates each vase with a pertinant quote
from the films he says he likes on Facebook.
Buys 6 bottles of food colouring,
glitter,
and pom poms
(he has not said he likes these on Facebook
but she is on a roll)

and fills his flat (white walls, grey sofa, clean lines)
with
‘love tokens’.

She surveys her creation,
heart panting, throat thrumming
knows she has done good.
“Couldn’t be yellower!”

As she closes his door behind her,
posts the key through the letterbox
(as is the regime)
and takes a step away
she realises
she might
not
have done
good.
(Shit.)

Could pretend it wasn’t her.
No.
“The pom poms are a dead giveaway”
she thinks
often.

She deflates at the bus stop,
traces his name with the tip of her tongue
on the roof of her mouth
to keep calm.
Tries to make friends with the bus driver,
the mum with the pram,
constructs the perfect text endlessly in her head,
gulps hard. He gets home from work at 6.

At home she alphabetisies the kitchen cupboards
makes sure all her shoes are facing forward,
makes it smell of lemon,
doesn’t eat.

“He’s already out of my league!
He’s sanitorium and wit,
sanity and metaphor,
he eats tarragon!
If I put a foot out of place
he won’t love me,
I’m Fray Bentos pies,
I’m nothing,
I’m pom pom!”

At 6.47pm he texts her
‘Wow’.

‘Wow, good, or wow bad’
she replies
at 7.11pm.
‘Wow – yellow’.

By Jackie Hagan

Jaclynhagan@hotmail.com
http://www.jackiehagan.weebly.com